After our group’s visit to the Tsinghua University Art Museum we ended the day with a visit to the Temple of Heaven (天壇). Wikipedia’s account (or whatever you can access) is probably sufficient for those who are curious about what the Temple of Heaven is about. In a nutshell, it is an impressive temple complex dating back to the early 1400s and was a key site for imperial sacrificial rituals. It is comprised numerous surviving buildings and beautiful grounds. For our interest as museum-types, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (number 881, to be exact). While it clearly attracts a significant number of visitors, visiting it (late in the day, in winter?) was certainly different from visiting the Forbidden City, where one typically becomes one tiny fish in a single vast, densely packed school of fish swimming straight through the complex from one end to another.

As earlier in the day, the companions were Jon Kay, Carrie Hertz, and Jason Jackson. At the Temple of Heaven we arrived too late in the day to enter any buildings, but we were able to stroll the grounds and see some of the buildings from the outside. Like so many monumental sites in China, one rarely has enough time to see the whole destination properly. Visiting when we did though, we really enjoyed the quiet contemplative nature of the experience. Many of those at the site were, like us, having a park visit experience as much or more than they were having a historical buildings experience. Of course, our state of reverie did not keep us from attending to the buildings, which were great. (A bit more text follows the images.)

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Lunch in between visiting the Tsinghua University Art Museum and the Temple of Heaven. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson.

A farmer painting-style image on a street sign in the Beijing neighborhood near the Temple of Heaven. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Jon Kay at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

(L-R) Jason Jackson and Carrie Hertz contemplate scratching and not scratching at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Carrie Hertz at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Carrie Hertz.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jason Baird Jackson

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Scene at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. December 8, 2017. Photograph by Jon Kay.

Carrie and I, on an earlier trip’s visit to the Forbidden City, had noticed the English language signs pleading for no scratching. At the time, this had not made full sense to us, although we of course understood the impulse to protect these ancient monuments. At the Temple of Heaven, we were able wander without rushing or bumping into other people and thereby got a close look at the problem these signs work to prevent. You can see both the signs and some scratches in the images here.

We figured it out with some smart phone help, but one of the reasons that we were late in the day getting to the Temple of Heaven is that our taxi driver delivered us to the Temple of Heaven Holiday Inn (not yet a UNESCO World Heritage site), which it turns out is not exactly right by the Temple of Heaven itself. This meant that what we lost in terms of time spent at the site, we gained in terms of a walk through a not particularly touristy but elder-rich Beijing neighborhood. Posted here are some pictures for our families, friends, and other interested folks.

Thanks as always to my great travel companions. For deciding on the Temple of Heaven, thanks go especially to Carrie.

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Built in the early 1980s, the Mathers Museum of World Cultures building is an example of Brutalist architecture, a modernist style reviled by some and revered by others. Two Indiana University historians with a research expertise in architecture fall squarely into one camp or the other. Eric Sandweiss, the current chair of the Department of History, and Michael Dodson, the current chair of the Dhar India Studies Program and a faculty member in the Department of History, have agreed to participate in a spirited debate on the relative beauty (or lack thereof) of the Mathers Museum building. In doing so, they will provide general insights into contemporary architecture and the contrasting and competing ways that beauty has been embraced, complicated, or rejected as a criterion for the evaluation and understanding of the built environment. The debate will be free and open to the public, and is sponsored by Themester 2016: Beauty, an initiative of the IU College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the President.

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Award Committee Chair Nora Pat Small recently noted for me the Paul E. Buchanan Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF). What is so cool about this award is that it recognizes outstanding work in vernacular architecture studies that takes one of many forms that are NOT books or articles. Check out the award information page and the list of past winners. Then send your nomination materials to Professor Small at Eastern Illinois University.

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The Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (aka CHAMP) is a very active initiative at the at the University of Illinois. Led by anthropologist Helaine Silverman, it involves a huge number of Illinois faculty and organizes a wide range of conferences, talks, and projects. CHAMP has announced a busy series of lectures for October. Check out its website for more information on CHAMP’s activities. Here are the upcoming lectures.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22
4 p.m.
Lucy Ellis Lounge, first floor in FLBVikings in America? Swedes in the American Ethno-Racial Hierarchies in the 19th Century
Lecture by Dr. Dag Blanck (English Department, Stockholm University)

We were not alone among museums of ethnography, cultural history, and world cultures celebrating golden anniversaries in 2013. Joining us in such celebrations were the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology, and the Cherokee Heritage Center. (2013 saw other notable 50th anniversaries in the broader museum world, including the 50th anniversary of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee/Milwaukee Public Museum museum studies program.) Congratulations to all of the half century celebrants, especially to these museums in our corner of the field.

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Congratulations to Kim Christen and everyone working on the Mukurtu project on news that the effort has received a major grant from the (U.S.) Institute for Museum and Library Services (announced here). This is a major development for a major project.

As noted on the Mukurtu project site, Mukurtu is “A free and open source community content management system that provides international standards-based tools adaptable to the local cultural protocols and intellectual property systems of Indigenous communities, libraries, archives, and museums.” It is “a flexible archival tool that allows users to protect, preserve and share digital cultural heritage through Mukurtu Core steps and unique Traditional Knowledge licenses.”

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I recently did an interview with Jon Kay for his fine Artisan Ancestors podcast. The audio podcast series bridges the interests of folklore/folklife/cultural history scholars and those of avocational researchers and craftspeople interested in art and everyday life, past and present. The particular topic for our conversation was the Creative Commons–what it is and what it is for, with some special consideration of its relevance to the concerns of the folklore-minded Artisan Ancestors audience. Jon is a great interviewer and his show is quickly gaining a following. I am very thankful to have participated in it and hope that our discussion proves useful to someone.

The show (Episode 22) can be found on the Artisan Ancestors website here and on iTunes, where one can both download individual shows and subscribe to the podcast in an ongoing way. Its free!

The interview is a prelude to a webinar that we will do next week. Details on that will come in a followup post.

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My review of Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights by former NEA Chairman (and AFS President) Bill Ivey was recently published in JFRR (Journal of Folklore Research Reviews). JFRR is an open access fork of the established toll access folklore journal Journal of Folklore Research. JFRR publishes reviews of diverse media in folklore studies and circulates the reviews via email. They are also available in search-able form online at http://www.indiana.edu/~jofr/reviewsearch.php.

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About this Site

I am a Professor of Folklore, and of Anthropology, at Indiana University, where I also direct the Mathers Museum of World Cultures. This site provides information on my museum, teaching, and research work, while also conveying some news and information relating to students and colleagues with whom I work and the projects on which we collaborate.